A Software for Dimensioning of Small Microgrids with PV-Battery Systems

The new developments of more efficient photovoltaic panels, batteries, inverters and their control systems are increasing the number of home renewable energy installations worldwide. Since a high part of the household demand arises at night, it is reasonable to consider the installation of batteries along with the photovoltaic systems. However, their acquisition costs still remain considerably high, and hence, a deficient selection of their capacity may reduce drastically the profitability of the renewable facility. At the same time, the number of solar panels to be installed is regarded by the batteries size, leading to a challenging task of dimensioning. For this purpose, we have developed a software which supports to select the most convenient characteristics of the elements to install in a low scale microgrid with presence of photovoltaic panels and batteries. According to the simulation results, this software helps to optimize both the dimensioning of household or office buildings attending to different criteria as the profitability or the reduction of the CO2 emissions.